Political campaigns are traditionally top-down affairs where political strategists workshop and focus-group messages, analyze data, and target narrow groups of persuadable voters and donors. But in the last 12 days, we have seen the birth of something genuinely new: the crowdsourced campaign.
Kamala Harris has already done unprecedented things, including raising $200 million in her first week as the likely nominee, a sum unmatched in political history. But the Harris campaign, aside from its new logo, is exactly the same organization as the Biden campaign, which had been floundering for months. How is that possible?
The answer is that the campaign itself has actually not done much at all, except surf the wave.
This isn’t a criticism. It’s the wisest thing they could have possibly done, and it shows remarkable agility and adaptability — something former President Donald Trump’s campaign has been unable to match. Despite having months to prepare for the possibility of a Harris campaign, Trump is still workshopping insulting nicknames.
Consider the evidence: The tsunami of excitement unleashed by Joe Biden’s withdrawal has resulted in tens if not hundreds of thousands of organically coordinated grassroots campaign efforts. The online memes alone are political gold, and something the Harris campaign could never have created on its own no matter how much time it had or money it spent. The campaign is not driving things like “Brat summer” and the coconut tree; they’re simply holding on and riding them for all they’re worth.
The same goes for their volunteers and fundraising. The campaign signed up 170,000 new volunteers in a single week. But the campaign did not go out and recruit these people or convince these donors. They just signed up and gave.
The Zoom call phenomenon is an excellent example. Over the last 12 days, there have been several massive video calls, often with hundreds of thousands of participants, organized to drum up enthusiasm and money for Harris. The energy behind these calls wasn’t generated by the campaign. In fact, many of these calls had nothing to do with the campaign at all. The Harris campaign did not organize a “White Dudes for Harris” coalition. In fact, they were probably pretty queasy about the idea initially. But the three-hour grassroots-organized event had 180,000 participants and raised almost $4 million, so I’m sure they got over it.
Even the campaign’s messaging is being outsourced. Critical information from independent focus groups is being publicly shared. And the campaign did not develop and A/B test its “Those guys are weird” messaging internally. Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, first began using it, and the campaign picked it up after they saw the idea getting traction.
It’s only now that the campaign is starting to generate its own issue-related content. But going too far in that direction might be a mistake. Earnest policy discussions are good but, in this campaign, memorable slogans are better.
There are no undecided voters left in America who are going to be swayed by a 50-page white paper on border security and immigration reform. The remaining persuadable voters aren’t policy wonks. They are more likely to be moved by a campaign’s zeitgeist. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and “Drill, baby, drill” aren’t policy statements — they are effective because they conjure an image that even the busiest voters immediately get.
The Harris campaign should be coming up with snappy slogans and providing fodder for the tens of thousands of creators who will amplify her message if given the chance. Instead they’re showing signs of wanting to explain things. In this election, if you’re explaining, you’re losing, even if it’s policy.
Take border security, one of the most important issues in this election. Harris needs her own version of “Build the wall!” Instead, the campaign is turning this into an issue that they have to explain for three minutes. How much better would it be for Harris to simply say, “I’m a prosecutor. I want order on the border. I’m all in on Senator Jim Lankford’s tough border security bill.” It’s short, it’s memorable, and content creators would have a field day with it.
The Harris campaign is already a campaign like no other in an election like no other. The urge to direct the firehose of energy and creativity that Harris has unleashed into more conventional channels is understandable. It’s also a mistake. For Democrats, this is turning into a wave election. It isn’t clear how high the wave will crest, but with three months to go, Harris has little choice but to ride that wave as long as she can.
Chris Truax is an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008.